Andy Garcia
Co-founder and Chairman of GSC Logistics, Andy Garcia, unexpectedly passed away on June 24th, 2020, right in the middle of a huge cultural shift happening in the company in which Andy played an integral part. This page stands as a virtual memorial for Andy, his legacy and the impact he made in the lives of the people around him.
Andy Garcia – a childhood refugee, co-founder of GSC, the embodiment of the classic American dream, and a man of the people. Andy’s ambition didn’t stop at getting his own “piece of the pie”. He fought, lovingly and passionately, until his dying day, for the rights and benefit of all people.
Born in Havana, Cuba, Andy learned the value of hard work at a young age, assisting his mother with her credit card business at just ten years old.
A few years later, following the Cuban revolution, Andy and his younger sister Amy, became “Peter Pan kids”- child refugees brought into the U.S. by the Catholic Welfare Bureau. When their arrival in Florida separated Andy and Amy, Andy got to work, picking tomatoes to earn money to send back to his parents in the hopes that one day soon, his family would be reunited. After a long two years, the Garcia family was finally brought back together. From Florida, the family moved to California where Andy attended high school and worked evenings waiting tables.
Those years of separation taught Andy to look for ways to connect more deeply with people, often using vivid stories and lots of jokes.
As those who knew him tell it, his humor and showmanship were second to none. Andy could easily keep a table full of people laughing. Even if you heard the joke a thousand times, Andy’s telling was guaranteed to make you laugh.
Andy truly loved people and they loved him.
He always looked for ways to make others feel cared for.
In business, this looked like championing the needs of everyone he worked with, like GSC’s owner-operator drivers. Andy knew that small businesses, like theirs, are the backbone of our country and he took great care to treat those businesses he worked with thoughtfully.
When talking with clients, he was known to always say yes, making sure to provide whatever they needed. Even if that meant last minute scrambling to provide refrigerated warehousing space or learning the ins and outs of cross-docking on the fly.
He’d often call clients, just to check-in on them, to make sure they were doing well and give them a chance to honestly answer the question “How are you?” and have the person asking actually listen to the answer.
In his personal life, Andy was strong, compassionate and always the life of the party. He was completely devoted to his family and his causes – lovingly fighting for the rights of refugees and underrepresented minority groups.